May 7, 2008 by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matt Corley,
Ali Frick, and Benjamin Armbruster
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MEDIA
Hate Radio's Bigotry Against Hispanics
On Monday, hate radio king
Rush Limbaugh appeared on Fox News for five minutes to discuss the
presidential race and managed to make an offensive comment. Limbaugh
called Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D), who is Hispanic, a
"shoe shine guy." Yesterday, Alex Nogales, president of the National
Hispanic Media Coalition, blasted Limbaugh for uttering "the same kind
of nasty, bigoted, racist type comment that has become so prevalent in
today's society, as practiced by Lou Dobbs, as practiced by [Sean]
Hannity, [Bill] O'Reilly, [Michael] Savage." Racial slurs, particularly
fueled against Hispanics, has found a home on right-wing radio, which
claims 91 percent of radio airwaves. The nation's leading Hispanic
advocacy group, National Council of La Raza, launched a campaign
earlier this year decrying right-wing radio for its "rhetoric that
demonizes immigrants and Hispanic Americans." "Talk like Savage's, or
Limbaugh's or O'Reilly's, has become routine, even systematic, and
certainly a big business. According to the Senate Democratic Policy
Committee, the top five radio station owners that control 45 powerful,
50,000-watt or more radio stations broadcast 310 hours of nationally
syndicated right-wing talk. But they broadcast only a total of five
hours of countervailing talk," Salon reported. Yet these talkers are
rarely held to account: For example, neither ABC, Time, nor Politico
mentioned the offensive remarks when reporting on Limbaugh's TV
commentary this week. Progressive radio host Mario Solis-Marich wrote
Tuesday, "As a member of the largest minority ethnic group and a member
of the media, I am continually puzzled and outraged by the idea that
anyone can say anything about Latinos without fearing any
consequence.
DEMAGOGUING IMMIGRATION: A study by the Project for Excellence in
Journalism found, "Thanks to energetic opposition from Rush Limbaugh,
Sean Hannity, and Michael Savage, immigration was the biggest topic, at
16%, on conservative talk radio in the second quarter" of last year --
when conservative radio led the effort to defeat congressional
comprehensive immigration reform, largely by resorting to fear and
hatred. Radio host Neal Boortz urged listeners to help defeat "this
illegal alien amnesty bill" and "yank out the welcome mat." Speaking of
undocumented immigrants he said, "Give 'em all a little nuclear waste
and let 'em take it on down there to Mexico. Tell 'em...it'll heat
tortillas." Michael Savage repeatedly exhorted listeners to "burn a
Mexican flag" and to "tell them to go back to where they came from."
CNN's Glenn Beck, who also has a radio show, took particular issue with
Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) support for the immigration bill (though
McCain has since changed positions), deriding the senator as "Juan
McCain." Beck called McCain's support for the bill and the fact that
his national director of Hispanic outreach was of Mexican background
"an audacious slap in the face."
A 'RACE WAR': Right-wing radio's discussion of immigration often veers
away from policy to focus on race. Savage once warned his listeners,
"The European-American, or the white person, is being erased from
America's future...There is a racial element to the immigration
invasion, at least I see it that way." Discussing a pro-immigrant
parade in L.A., O'Reilly said, "So now, it's becoming a race war."
O'Reilly also accused supporters of immigration -- "who hate
America...because it's run primarily by white, Christian men" -- of
seeking "to change the complexion..
made clear their primary concern: maintaining a white majority. Just
this year, Fox News's John Gibson gave "a big round of applause" on his
radio show to the "non-Hispanic white women" who were having babies,
which he said vindicated his call on "the dominant, or largest
population sector, which is Caucasians," to "make more babies." "And
what happens to white people?" Savage wondered. "That's the real
question here. Will our brown brethren, who are so nationalistic and so
anti-gringo and anti-Anglo, be as enlightened as the European-American
is? I don't think so."
HEALTH SCARE: Right-wing radio hosts have also -- wrongly -- claimed
that illegal immigrants should be kept out of the United States because
they bring strange diseases in. O'Reilly agreed with a caller into his
radio show who said that illegal immigration "surpasses the impact of
9/11" because "each one of these people is a biological weapon." The
caller claimed that that "illegals crossing the border" are bringing
"tuberculosis, syphilis, leprosy." O'Reilly agreed, and said there was
"an absolutely airtight case" that more Americans "have either been
killed or injured, based upon the 11 million illegals who are here,"
than died on 9/11. (O'Reilly later insisted he "never said anything
like that.") Last summer, CNN's Lou Dobbs repeatedly claimed that there
were "7,000" cases of leprosy in the U.S. in the last three years, and
suggested the cases were due to illegal immigrants. When confronted
with a CBS analysis that found only 7,000 cases of leprosy in the last
30 years -- and an unknown number involving illegal immigrants -- Dobbs
simply replied, "If we reported it, it's a fact."
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